She Who is Veiled

Penelope Stewart is an artist, curator/writer and publisher whose multi-disciplinary practice encompasses expansive architectural installations/interventions, alternative photography, artist books, and works on paper. Re-current themes address notions of cultural memory, of time and space and a considered approach to the relationship between objects, architecture, gardens, landscape and the places between – places to intervene, inhabit and above all activate. Whether it has been historic sites such as Musée Barthète, a small museum in France, or a museum like the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY or the deconstruction/reconstruction of a 19 th century book of botany using cyanotype, her intentions are to create sensory spaces, haptic experiences, transforming our perceptions and possible readings of space, time and memory.

She Who is Veiled 1990, b&w photograph, 8 x 10 feet/pi, Collection: Bloor Street United Church, Toronto.

This work was done as a memorial to the women who were killed at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal in 1989. The large female hands hold a nest large enough for most people to crawl into. The white healing light shining through the nest combats the despair felt by many. This piece is currently housed upstairs in the old chapel and remains a work that many have found comfort in, through contemplation.

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